This image released by ABC shows Meghan McCain on the set of “The View,” in NY. (Heidi Gutman/ABC via AP)
If you’re a conservative woman like me, you felt a sense of déjà vu as you watched the heated exchange between View co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Meghan McCain Monday where Goldberg told McCain to “stop talking” as McCain was trying to defend herself to her other co-hosts.
Alex Parker wrote about what happened here, but you can also watch the video below in case you missed it:
whoopi really said “girl please stop talking” 😧 pic.twitter.com/ubaKe4dIRa
— Déjà The View (@dejatheviewpod) December 16, 2019
Partial transcript below:
Meghan McCain cut in then to call out her co-hosts sanctimonious outrage, pointing out that they were supposed to be analyzing the politics, not “litigating ethics.”
“My job here is not to litigate the ethics of it. I’m an ABC political analyst along with being a View co-host, and my job is to analyze the politics of it,” she touted.
As [Sunny] Hostin and McCain interrupted each other, Whoopi tried to talk over them. McCain accused her co-hosts of not wanting to hear the conservative perspective on anything: “Let me talk. I let you finish. Do you want to hear a conservative perspective on the show ever?”
That really riled up Whoopi who angrily scolded, “Girl, please stop talking! Please stop talking right now!”
McCain retorted that she wouldn’t talk for the rest of the show. “No problem. No problem. I won’t talk for the rest of the show. No problem,” she griped.
Whoopi snarked back, “I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that. Because if you are going to behave like this–” she began as McCain tried to defend herself.
After having 24 hours to calm down, both Goldberg and McCain addressed the viral moment on the Tuesday show, laughably boiling it down to being like a family squabble between two “passionate women.”
McCain herself was particularly gracious to Goldberg the day after basically being told to shut up, taking the time to address Goldberg directly though Goldberg’s remarks were more directed to the crowd than her (because crowd approval to leftists is more important than repairing friendships, I guess) . In an attempt to find common ground, McCain insinuated the coverage of their spat was sexist in nature, suggesting men who get into political arguments on TV don’t get the same coverage.
Perhaps she’s never watched a Chris Cuomo or Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity episode, but I digress.
Look, so many conservative women have been in similar positions. When you’re in politically mixed company on neutral ground, you oftentimes do your best to stay as vanilla as possible because you’d rather everyone get along than everyone fuss. But then a political opinion is uttered by either a liberal or another conservative (or maybe even you), then words are exchanged and things sometimes get heated – and even out of control in some cases.
And in an effort to make peace and seem bipartisan, you try to do what McCain did with Goldberg. Find that rhetorical spot where everyone can agree, we can all laugh about it, tell everyone to chill, it’s okay, we’re buddies and these things happen, and move on.
This happens online, offline, no matter where you go. When political conversations are started, chances are the conservative woman speaking is going to be treated like a pariah by the same liberals who’ll tell you on any given day of the week how they love and respect diverse opinions.
But making conservative women feel like their political opinions aren’t welcomed isn’t confined to disagreements between friends and colleagues. You also find it in media coverage on issues like abortion. As I’ve written before in another VIP post, mainstream media journalists and the liberal commentators they frequently have on to bash conservatives love to pretend that pro-life women don’t even exist:
Move along. No agenda here. pic.twitter.com/UKh9ZBrALq
— Sister Toldjah 😁 (@sistertoldjah) May 26, 2019
They love to emphasize how many male legislators have voted for various fetal heartbeat bills without noting (or giving very little attention to the fact) that oftentimes women are lead sponsors of such bills, and are passionate about defending them. They do this because acknowledging pro-life women’s voices more often as part of the overall vigorous debate on abortion would also mean the media has to admit women are not some giant monolith of mindless group-thinkers who all vote the same way.
And we can’t have that.
But back to McCain and Goldberg, that they seem to have patched up their differences for the time being is great. I can’t speak to their professional working relationship or friendship personally because I don’t know them, and wouldn’t speak for them even if I did. So I won’t.
But what I can say is things like this happen far more often than most people think – liberal women shouting down conservative women for having the audacity to disagree. It’s quite prevalent, actually, and in my experience much more prevalent than attempts by any man (conservative or liberal) to purposely try and shame me into not speaking out.
